Logan abruptly lets me go, so my full weight yanks down on the rope around my wrists and the hook. My muscles scream in agony, and I’m reminded that I’m hanging from the ceiling. At this point, I can’t even feel my hands anymore. I chance a look up. My fingers are starting to turn blue from the lack of blood circulation.
My fingers quickly become the least of my worries. A cold barrel of a gun is pressed in the center of my forehead.
“Stop fucking lying to me!” he sneers, a crazy look in his eyes, his lips curled in disgust. “These are not regular bullets, Ava. They’re made out of silver and dipped in aconite.” He smirks like I’m supposed to know what that means. “So you better start telling the truth.”
I can’t take it anymore, the craziness of it all, the fire blazing through my body.
I snap.
“I don’t know what that means, you stupid fucking bastard!” I scream at the top of my lungs. Logan doesn’t react to my outburst; he just narrows his eyes and tilts his head. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t even know what a fated mate is, and honestly, I don’t even fucking care. I was at a Halloween bonfire party near the lake. I needed to pee, so I went by myself into the woods, and then I heard a scream. It sounded like Tony, so I ran to him.” I take a deep breath in. “I reached him, but it was too late.” My voice cracks, and my lower lip trembles with my admission.
“Tony, he…he was being mauled by a big wolf with auburn fur. It clawed out his heart. Then I realized I was in danger, but when I decided to get out of there, I stepped on a branch. When the wolf noticed me, something happened to me. All the bones in my body started to break, and I felt like I was dying.” I shudder at the memory of the intense pain. It takes a few seconds for me to be able to continue.
“It sounds insane, I know, but I think I transformed into a wolf. When my vision cleared, I saw someone wearing a dark cloak, collecting the hearts from the forest floor. The wolf then disappeared with that cloaked person through the trees and left me there. As if that wasn’t crazy enough, before I could even catch my fucking breath, another wolf came charging at me. I guess that wolf was you because, apparently, people transforming into wolves is a thing now. Next thing I know, I wake up here. That’s it. That’s my truth. That’s all I know. I keep thinking that maybe,maybe, I’ll wake up from this fucking nightmare. But I’m not going to, am I? This is all real.”
A deep belly laugh belts out of me, and I sound just like a crazy person. It dies as abruptly as it came out. I throw Logan a scathing glare. “So shoot me, you oaf! Fucking shoot me and get it over with,” I seethe.
His lips twist in a wry smile. “Did you just call me an oaf?”
My jaw locks with anger. “Oh, I can do better than that: motherfucker, egotistical bastard, dickhead,pendejo, hijo de put—”
Logan cuts me off. “Okay, I think I got the gist of it,” he says dryly. He lowers his gun and sits for a minute with everything I said as he starts pacing the small space. Then he turns to me. “So what, I’m supposed to believe you shifted for the first time last night?”
“Is that what it’s called? Shifting? Yeah, I did, and trust me, it was a fucking shock, to say the least.”
“So you were bitten, then. Where’s your sire?”
My eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “My what?”
He widens his stance and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Your sire, Ava. Stop playing stupid.”
I let out a frustrated groan. “I’m not playing stupid. I don’t know what that is. No one fucking bit me. All I know is that my life was normal until I discovered I was going to die a few months ago. Then my heart stopped. I had a transplant, and all of these weird things started happening to me.”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Where’s your scar?”
“What?”
“If you had heart transplant surgery, then why don’t you have a scar?”
“It healed, okay? I know it’s weird, especially since I had the surgery four months ago. But my doctor said not to worry about it. It’s just one of the weird things that happened after.”
“What are the others? Enlighten me,” he deadpans.
I swallow and close my eyes briefly, trying to stay in the present, but it’s getting harder by the minute with how badly my skin is burning. I feel like someone threw me into a furnace. “Like dreaming about a wolf with a coat of ash-brown fur and honey eyes almost every night, becoming weirdly strong—like breaking things without trying—smelling and hearing someone before they walk into a room…”
Taking a deep breath in, I open my eyes. My vision is slightly blurry, and beads of sweat are now coursing freely from my hairline over my face. “And then there’s Hope, the girl I received the heart from. A girl who was in a cult in this weird little town, Devil’s Creek. They did satanic rituals wearing the skin of wolves. At least, that’s what my private investigator told me. So my best guess is that the heart I received is cursed or some shit. Just my luck to receive another chance at life and then get a freakin’ curse,” I mumble the last part to myself.
A laugh bursts out of Logan, and then he doubles over and continues laughing like he just heard the most amusing joke ever. He comes up for air after what seems like forever and wipes at the corner of his eyes. “That has to be the funniest shit I’ve heard in my entire life. You really expect me to believe you?”
“Glad you found it entertaining,pendejo,” I snark. “Yes, I do because I told you the truth. She also disappeared when she was fifteen years old and then reappeared the night she died in a car accident. It’s real; her disappearance was even broadcasted on the news eight years ago. There are articles online.”
“I don’t know if you’re crazy or delusional enough to believe that story, but what you’re telling me is impossible. Wolf shifters are either born or sired by a bite. When you get bitten, there is a ninety percent chance you’ll turn feral and go crazy. But you already know all this, so stop stalling with your bullshit and tell me where my fated mate is,” he demands with a sneer and points the gun at me again.
I don’t say anything else as I glare at him, my breath coming out in short pants. I’m grinding my teeth so hard I’m surprised they don’t turn to dust. I don’t have it in me to continue this crazy conversation. I have tried every single thing to reason with him, and he won’t hear it, so why should I waste my breath anymore when he’s not going to believe me anyway?
Something inside of me is going feral. I keep hearing in my brain,“Mine!”over and over again, and all I want to do is climb Logan like a tree and fuck his brains out, but at the same time, I hate him so much for doing this to me, for not believing me. He hung me like an animal, and I still want him so damn much it hurts. Every inch of my skin is weeping for his touch, and I’m so mad at myself for feeling this way, but I can’t stop it. I don’t know how.
Anger is rolling off Logan in waves as he stares me down, waiting for an answer. Well, we’ll be here forever at this ratebecause I have nothing else to give him, so he can as well shoot me and get it over with. This doesn’t fucking scare me. I already looked death in the face twice. The way I see it, I was supposed to give my last breath in that tour van …. At least I got the wings I so desperately craved.
